Bill Conti says he will be “relentless” in his effort to fill seats. Howard Lipin • U-T

Film composer and pops conductor Bill Conti isn’t afraid to say no. n “Just to go someplace to do a concert? I’m kind of beyond that,” said Conti, whose name may draw a blank but whose tunes, including the theme to “Rocky,” are likely embossed on your brain. n “I don’t need to do that anymore. And I’ve mentioned this to people who care about me because of their income: ‘You just can’t book me there. I’m not going there.’ The planes, the connections, the orchestra is just kind of OK and the musicians are unhappy to be there. So why would I do it?”

But Conti quickly said yes to the San Diego Symphony, which he conducted in 2010 in an “A Night at the Academy Awards” pops program. (That program was especially appropriate, as Conti has conducted the Oscar telecast 19 times and was awarded multiple Emmys for his efforts.)

Conti is the San Diego Symphony’s new principal pops conductor, succeeding the late Marvin Hamlisch. He recently agreed to a three-year contract in which each season he’ll conduct the opening concert of the orchestra’s Summer Pops and two concerts in its City Lights series at Copley Symphony Hall. He’ll also work with the orchestra in developing pops programming.

“I only had that one experience with your orchestra,” said the 70-year-old conductor, talking on the phone from his Los Angeles home. “But I don’t have to attend every concert that an orchestra has ever done. When you step up there — even if it’s not Mozart, granted it’s not Mozart — in the first eight, 16 bars, you know, as they say, where the bodies are buried. … As a conductor, things go through your head if you’ve been doing it a while. And I’ve been doing it a while.”

Conti, who has been conducting live orchestra concerts since 1977 (and bands and studio orchestras years before that), had only good thoughts during that 2010 San Diego program that started with the “Final Bell” fanfare from “Rocky” and ended with “Gonna Fly Now.”

“Sometimes, a symphony orchestra will think it’s just a job,” Conti said. “I know we’ve all done this many, many times, but if you ever lose the edge, the excitement about making music, forget it. As a conductor I can feel that.

“So when I felt them caring about making music, I was touched by that. You can be elite all you want. No, it’s not Beethoven. No, it’s not. But that’s not why we signed on. We signed on to make the best music we can make.”

Going for broke

As you may have guessed by now, Conti is not somebody who goes halfway. Like Rocky, he’s going for a knockout.

“I want a full house,” Conti said. “And I will be relentless in that pursuit.

“Look, everybody who performs wants to perform to a full house. I’ve been a musician all my life, and in the early days I’d put on shows for the waiters. In Miami Beach, I was 13, 14 years old. I was playing in nightclubs that had shows, and if there was nobody there — and the owner was putting on a comic, a singer and an exotic dancer — the show still went on. And the waiters would sit back and watch.”